What Microsoft should do for next-gen DRMXBox One Family Sharing: The Killer Feature That Never Was

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What Microsoft should do for next-gen DRMXBox One Family Sharing: The Killer Feature That Never Was

CBoaT himself, in his E3 rumors post, had said that "Microsoft DRM deal would get worse", and Jeff Gertsmann has implied that MS would announce something during Gamescom that would make people even angrier. Now we know what it was: the family sharing plan was nothing more than a system to distribute a glorified demo.

There was no way a full game playthrough was going to be part of the Family Plan. Think about it. So a group of 11 friends could all chip in for a single $60 game, and all would get to play it thoroughly all the way to the end credits?The companies would be losing $600 in revenue per game because those 11 people would do this for all purchases.The Family Plan merely being a demo seems a lot more likely.

Actually I have. Did it a lot in university, pretty easy to do when you join a club where people share similar interest – not so much now that I’m out of it of course.
I know all the arguments of why sharing is bad etc, however if MS’ idea was truly to replace physical with digital then it makes sense to have this ability. The idea that you share a demo is actually pretty silly, one which they may as well not even implement because it isn’t worth the trouble to do that sort of work, so I find the argument that MS is going for demo sharing to be pretty silly since the DRM they have placed are actually pretty rational, if poorly explained.

Also if their goal was to kill second hand market (or at least take a revenue cut), then the digital lending model is actually MUCH more beneficial. They can implement the time limit in a “nagware” sort of way (prompt you to buy the game every hour, but won’t limit you to keep playing) and try to get you to buy directly from the XBox Store where the publisher gets more cut (can even introduce a “buddy system” – get 5 bucks off or something similar if you come from a share), it’s much better than having people go buy second hand from Gamestop for example.